Banks sack 1,487 staff, increase contract staff

Banking sector in the country relieved about 1, 487 workers of their jobs in the second quarter of 2017 from the total of 77, 096 staff in the sector as at the first quarter of 2017.

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics , NBS, showed that the total number of banks’ staff decreased from 77,096 in Q1 2017 to 75, 607 in Q2 2017.

The statistics firm stated that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, administratively supplied the data while the NBS verified and validated it.

Analysis showed that executive staff population declined by 7.47 per cent, falling from 174 staff in the first quarter of the year to 161 staff as at the second quarter.

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The data showed that senior staff population in banks fell by 3.21 per cent in the period from 20,483 in first quarter to 19,826 in second quarter.

Similarly, junior staff population also plunged by 6.68 per cent from 36,237 staff in first quarter to 33,783 staff in the second quarter of 2017.

It appears that the shedding may have been deliberate as the banks increased their contract staff by 7.91 per cent as this category of staff increased from 20,237 staff in the first quarter to 21,837 in the second quarter of 2017.

Further analysis showed that a total volume of 327,366,042 transactions valued at N19.78 trillion was recorded in the second quarter of 2017 as data on electronic payment channels in the Nigeria banking sector showed.

ATM transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded. 187,805,431 volume of ATM transactions valued at N1.54 trillion were recorded in the second quarter 2017.

In terms of credit to the private sector, a total of N15.71 trillion worth of credit was allocated by the banks in the second quarter of 2017. Oil & Gas and Manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.53 trillion and N2.22 trillion to record the highest credit allocation in the period under review/